Olympic Sport: The Whole Muscle-Flexing Story

Are Olympic athletes born stronger and faster than the rest of us? Why do tennis rackets have strings? How do gymnasts balance on their hands? Why do hurdlers do the splits when they jump? Glenn Murphy, author of Why is Snot Green?, answers these and lots of other brilliant questions in Olympic Sport: The Whole Muscle-Flexing Story, a fascinating book about the science of sport. From running a marathon to beating your friends at basketball or being the bendiest gymnast around, find out everything you ever wanted to know about sports and games and what it is that makes athletes the best at what they do. Discover more funny science with Does Farting Make You Faster?.

Glenn Murphy wrote his first book, Why is Snot Green?, while working at the Science Museum, London. Since then he has written around twenty popular-science titles aimed at kids and teens, including the bestselling How Loud Can You Burp? and Space: The Whole Whizz-Bang Story. His books are read by brainy children, parents and teachers worldwide, and have been translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, Turkish, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian. Which is kind of awesome. In 2007 he moved to the United States and began writing full-time, which explains why he now says things like 'kind of awesome'. These days he lives in sunny, leafy North Carolina - with his wife Heather, his son Sean, and two unfeasibly large felines.